Will Colorado’s strong wind energy flag this year?

Colorado wind power continued to soar in 2013, but may flag this year according to facts and figures in American WindEnergy Associationâ€™s annual market report.

AWEA, the industryâ€™s main trade group, pronounced 2013 a good year with 61,110 megawatts operating in the U.S. across 46,100 wind turbines in 39 states and Puerto Rico. The 905 utility-scale wind projects operating can power the equivalent of 15.5 million American homes.

And here are some of the Colorado highlights:

â€˘ 2,332 Megawatts of Installed Wind Capacity

â€˘ 1,530 Total Number of Wind Turbines

â€˘ 7,382 Megawatt Hours of Wind Generation

â€˘ 13.8 Percent of the States Generation Capacity Coming from Wind

â€˘ 681,000 Homes Powered by Wind

â€˘ 4,370,000 Metric Tons of CO2 Emissions Avoided Due to Wind Energy Production

â€˘ 1,607,000,000 Gallons of Annual Water Consumption Savings

â€˘ $4.3 Billion in Total Project Investment

â€˘ 3,001 – 4,000 People Employed in the Industry.
As 2013 closed there were plans for another 600 megawatts of projects in Colorado, including wind farms serving by Xcel Energy, the Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association and the Platte River Power Authority and Black Hills Energy.

Xcel Energy, which operates in eight states and is Coloradoâ€™s largest electricity supplier, was also cited by AWEA as the top utility in the nation for wind-based generation. Xcel has 5,080 megawatts of wind power â€“ with 43 percent of the total in Colorado.

Wind energy provided a record 60 percent of the electricity on Xcelâ€™s Colorado system at one point in last May. Several other regions also broke records for wind generation.

Year-round, wind energy in 2013 topped the 25 percent in both Iowa and South Dakota. Still in total, wind energy comprised 4.3 percent of the nationâ€™s electricity generation mix by the end of 2013.

source: AWEA

While 2013 was sunny for wind, the fate of the industry remains as it has for two decades, tied up with the federal Wind Production Tax Credit â€“ equal to about $23 for each megawatt-hour generated by a new wind farm for the first 20 years â€“ and the tax credit has once again expired.

At the end 2012 the credit expired and orders for wind turbines dried up. â€śAs a result of the slowdown and the months needed to region momentum, the industry saw a 92 percent drop in installations, down from a record 13,131 MW in 2012 to just 1,087 MW in 2013,â€ť the AWEA market study said.

The tax credit was restored at the start of 2013 for one year. That spurred a record 100 projects with 12,000 megawatts by the end of the year. The future of the tax credit is once again up in the air and in Congress. “This boom-bust pattern could continue if policy uncertainty continues.â€ť

How about some math?
$4.3 billion spent. 30 year money is running 3.6% interest, what the feds have to pay the Chinese for money as of the 4/15 bond auction.

The interest on $4.3 billion is $155 million per year.

The wind turbines produced 7.4 MILLION KW-hrs in a year.
$155 million/7.4 million = 21 cents/kw-hr in INTEREST alone.
Forget maintenance, forget paying the principal. Just the interest is 21 cents.

Without all that money taken from others in subsidies, tax credits, high infeed tariffs, wind in Colorado seems remarkably expensive since the state average RETAIL price for electricity is only 11.9 cents /kw-hr.

No wonder our students don’t like math. It’s really depressing.

alan in montana

Am I missing something or did they average 3 hours this year? How else to explain 2300 Megawatts installed and 7300 megawatt hours produced?

TomK

Capacity – you can’t be serious! Wind delivers about 25% of its capacity!

David joined The Denver Post in 1999, his second go-round in the Mile High City. Since then heâ€™s covered a variety of topics â€“ from human services to consumer affairs â€“ most always with an investigative bent. Currently he does investigations and banking.